1. Field of Invention
The present invention relates to inducing desired behavior by a subject with the automatic application of points.
2. Background of Invention
Inducing desired behavior of subjects is important in many different contexts such as parent-child, employer-employee, mentor-protégé, trainer-trainee, doctor-patient, counselor-camper, commanding officer-soldier, teacher-student, jailer-inmate, caretaker-nursing home resident and even within the context of self-help. It is generally understood that rewarding desired behavior and punishing undesired behavior is important in achieving these ends, but the consistent execution of reward and punishment proves difficult in practice. For example, within a parent-child context, parents often have good intentions, but nonetheless reward and punish their children inconsistently, meting out different responses to similar behaviors at different times and to different children, depending upon a variety of external factors.
Furthermore, parents frequently over or under punish and/or reward. Parents often react to relatively minor undesirable behaviors with extremely harsh punishments, decided on the spot, often in anger. After such punishments are handed out, parents will typically not enforce them in their entirety. On the other side of the coin, more serious transgressions are often not met with a sufficient response, often because the parents are focused on other matters, or simply because no appropriate punishment is readily apparent to the parents. Similarly, desired behavior is often not sufficiently rewarded, or at the other extreme, over rewarded in a way not appropriately reflective of the behavior itself.
All of this leaves the children with a confused and inconsistent understanding of the relationship between their actions and the resulting rewards or punishments. Desired behavior is not induced, because the children do not learn to associate it with appropriate consequences. Of course, the same problems apply in contexts other than parent-child, such as, for example, teacher-student.
Some efforts have been made to manually assign specific consequences to behaviors. For example, teachers of young children sometimes implement manual punishment systems designed to minimize misbehavior within their classrooms. One such system, used at Ashley Falls Elementary School in San Diego, Calif., involves defining multiple color coded behavioral levels, and representing them with colored construction paper attached to the classroom wall. Chits representing the students can be attached to a default level, e.g., the green level. If a student misbehaves, their chit can be moved to lower levels, for example yellow then red. Upon commission of sufficient misbehavior, (e.g., the red level) the child can be punished, for example by being sent to the principal's office. Although such systems are generally designed to prevent misbehavior, sometimes good behavior is also rewarded, for example by providing children with inexpensive toys and such. Although useful within its limited context, such a system is not generally applicable to non-classroom situations, or even for older children. Furthermore, such a system must be manually configured and administered, which can be a labor intensive process.
Some special education programs employ a human being who monitors the behavior of the students, and updates a paper worksheet detailing their behavior. In one such system, utilized at Little Keswick School in Keswick, Virginia, all students start at the lowest level, and can be awarded higher levels based on performing desired behaviors over time. The system includes levels 1-3, and the awarding of higher levels is based on the subjective determination of an administrator. Certain privileges are associated with higher levels. The performance of undesired behavior can result in the student being demoted to a lower level, or written up for behavioral problems. This system can be used to measure the progress of special education students, but is very administratively burdensome. A person must monitor the behavior of the students full time, and manually enter all observations onto a paper form. Additionally, the behaviors, levels and privileges are not flexible, because they are all defined by the school and cannot be customized by third parties. Additionally, because the awarding of higher levels is subjective, students do not learn a direct correlation between specific behaviors and specific consequences. Furthermore, the applicable context is extremely limited.
Dr. States's Computer Parent™ Family Software pays and fines children for performing or not performing their assigned chores. Such a system is less labor intensive to use than a manual, paper system, but is still inflexible and limited in context. In addition to the narrow application context, this system only provides monetary rewards and punishments. Monetary rewards and punishments are only a narrow segment of the consequences which it is desirable to teach subjects, and thus are of limited use in inducing desired behavior. Many desired behaviors cannot be related to money, and many important rewards are not fiscal in nature.
What is needed are flexible and configurable automated methods and systems that allow application of a wide variety of rewards and punishments for consistently and effectively inducing desired behavior across a wide variety of contexts.